Sacred music in the nineteenth century
After the Revolutionary period, the restoration of religious worship in 1803 led to a revival of sacred music – choir schools re-opened and for a short time the Imperial Chapel was active – but the result was somewhat lacklustre, since musicians no longer had the proper training. The educational initiatives of Choron (1825) and Niedermeyer (1853) accompanied the interest in Palestrina and Gregorian chant, and the Schola Cantorum (1894) followed in their wake. Despite some militancy in favour of the restoration of Gregorian chant and the creation of a specific sacred repertoire, music for worship merged into the Romantic aesthetic. Neglecting simple mass settings, composers (Cherubini, Plantade, Berlioz, Martini, Saint-Saëns, Fauré and others) preferred the Requiem. But as the century went on there was a gradual loss of interest in the spectacular and a move towards a more ethereal – and soon Sulpician – type of expression. The relaxing of the dogma and the dissemination of the ideas of the ultramontane Catholic Lamennais also favoured the development of the oratorio (Elwart, David, Gounod, Berlioz, Franck, Dubois, Rabaud, Massenet, Pierné, etc.), a little-defined genre that allowed composers a great deal of freedom – a sign of the transfer of religiosity from the church to the concert.
![Le Monde illustré, 1866/03/24 [Messe en musique de Liszt]](/sites/default/files/styles/280_x_auto/public/2024-07/mi_1866_03_24_messe_st_eustache_liszt.jpg?itok=k0r55PaL)
![Le Monde illustré, 1874/06/20 [Messe de Verdi à l’Opéra-Comique]](/sites/default/files/styles/280_x_auto/public/2025-04/mi_1874_06_20_messe_verdi_oc.jpg?itok=OJdF8nSP)
![Le Monde illustré, 1874/07/04 [Messe de Verdi à l’Opéra-Comique]](/sites/default/files/styles/280_x_auto/public/2025-04/mi_1874_07_04_cham_verdi.jpg?itok=h8c-D5iZ)
![Le Monde illustré, 1870/11/12 [Requiem de Cherubini]](/sites/default/files/styles/280_x_auto/public/2025-01/mi_1870_11_12_requiem_cherubini.jpg?itok=8uvD3igH)
![Le Monde illustré, 1874/06/13 [Requiem de Verdi]](/sites/default/files/styles/280_x_auto/public/2025-04/mi_1874_06_13_requiem_de_verdi.jpg?itok=gTOvRR7t)
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publication date : 22/01/26
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